Yuja Wang: The Berlin Recital
Works by Ligeti, Prokofiev,
Rachmaninov
and Scriabin

Yuja Wang (pf)

Deutsche Grammophon4836280

At 31, Yuja Wang is reaping the promise of
keyboard talent displayed in earlier years. In
this intelligent, sensibly compiled programme,
works by György Ligeti are a triumph,
perhaps no surprise to Yujaphiles familiar
with the pianist’s affi nities with this
composer,
included on her debut CD a decade ago.
Ligeti’s Étude No 3 ‘Touches bloquées’
captures the cosmic reach of the Hungarian
master, evoking unstoppable noises of the
universe. One feels that Ligeti himself would
have revelled in this performance. Étude No 9
‘Vertige’ likewise conveys cyclic nature
through rainfall-like effects, in what might
otherwise be mistaken for an intellectual
exercise in modernist expression, akin to the
works of the German composer Helmut
Lachenmann. Étude No 1 ‘Désordre’ is
dispatched with Gallic panache, like a French
modernist depiction of automobile traffi c
around the Arc de Triomphe. (Would that
Wang next turned her attention to the works
of Witold Lutosławski, among other
20th-century composers for piano.)

In other highlights, Scriabin’s Sonata No
10, Op 70 has a spectral quality that reflects
much focus on sound texture. The rest of the
CD is not always as satisfying.
Rachmaninov’s Prelude Op 23/5 has
elegance and rhythmic command, a
patrician reading akin to Chopin’s sound
portraits of equestrians. But Rachmaninov’s
Étude-tableau Op 33/3 is emotionally
neutral,
hardly plumbing the depths of the
composer’s neuroses, while his Prelude
Op 32/10 has Debussy-like delicacy, yet lacks
profound emotion. In Prokofiev’s Sonata
No 8, the concentration on sound quality
omits a more acerbic narrative sense or
tragic emotional background. Wang can play
anything, but in some music, she has yet to
convince us exactly why she is playing it.